Ask Me Help Desk - Not really a Question

I desparately need someone to talk to. Sometimes I think if I could just say what I feel it might make me feel a bit better. But on the other hand I feel so much and it all conflicts with each other. I am married and I have a wife that is never feeling good. She suffers from Post Traumatic Stress from being a paramedic for 18 years and she has a bad back. The doctor has her hooked on Methadone and they are trying to get her off them by using Morphine. She is going through withdrawal so bad, that she has been vomiting for 4 1/2 weeks. So they gave her something for her stomach and it helped with the vomiting but it is giving her panic attacks and anxiety really bad. When she is like that she yells at me over everything. I work a full time job getting up at 6am each morning to get her pills ready so I can get ready to go to work. I work all day and come home to cook dinner and do the dishes. On the weekend I have to clean the house, do the laundry and everything else to do with the house. She does nothing. Then she will yell at me because things are not clean enough. In the evenings I get up and get her juice, tea or anything else she wants and if I say thing she cries. She will even get up, go to the bathroom and walk by the kitchen to sit back down and then ask me to stop what I am doing to get her a drink. The had part is , I really do love her. She does not like anyone on my family nor do they like her either. She can be mean, harsh and very unforgiving. She is in so much pain with her back we have not slept in the same bed for over a year. She never thinks twice about going to get the groceries with me and going way over budget and then cry because she did. I do not know what to do anymore. I know she loves me but that is all. I want to not only be loved, but held and cared for and complemented and once in a while have someone take care of me. I often dream of finding someone like that, someone like she use to be before she got sick. I can not talk to her because she either gets mad or cries. I need someone to talk to...

Hi corrine, welcome to amhd. Feel free to vent all you need to here. Can I ask, what other help is your wife getting? Aside from the daughter prescribing pills, is she seeing a counselor? And what about you? I don't want to discourage you from talking to us here, but a personal therapist for you might be a good idea too. Does she have any friends or family on her side that might be able to step in and help some?

Hi Justcurious55, thanks for the welsome. My wife see's both a psychatrist ad a psychologist. Sh eis very sensitive about her situation and does not like me to talk about it and besides we really can't afford for me to go. Workers' Compensation pays for her but seeing psychologist costs a lot of money. Because she does not want any one to know anything, the friends and family thing to help is out of the question. So I am lost, in the middle of no where and do not know what to do for me. I have tried to talk to people before and it always back fires and she finds out and I get in trouble.

Hi,

From what I can gather you are enabling her to continue down this path unabated.

Read this site, Setting Personal Boundaries - protecting self and see where your priorities lie.Setting your boundaries for yourself preservation.It seems you have a great loyalty for her,but at this pace,you're going to burn out.

Your needs are going to have to take front line.You won't be able to help her if you are completely exhausted.

The reluctance to get help, besides the money(which will be meaningless if this continues anyway),is from the shame she(and you,to some extent) are feeling,this shame stops many from trying and slowly opens wounds that don't heal.

Toxic Shame by Leo Booth/John Bradshaw

I only put in what I see,please use this as you see fit.

Yes I do know that I am enabling her. Stopping is easier said than done. I have gone to see her psychologist with her before and she said I can't always do what she wants. I agree, but try it. It is harder to sit and listen to someone sobbing for hours than it is to help her. I know this is enabling her but there has to be a way to help her without breaking my heart in the mean time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corrine1507

Yes I do know that I am enabling her. Stopping is easier said than done. I have gone to see her psychologist with her before and she said I can't always do what she wants. I agree, but try it. It is harder to sit and listen to someone sobbing for hours than it is to help her. I know this is enabling her but there has to be a way to help her without breaking my heart in the mean time.

Have you read the sites I had listed, there you will find some ground to start on, use them,they do work..